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Claire spent her first Thanksgiving holiday at the beach with Mommy & Daddy, Grandma & Grandpa, and Uncle Jay, Aunt Nancy and Cousin Cash. Shirl (Eric’s mom) made a fabulous meal that included a 24lb turkey! Claire munched down on green beans and then joined me in one of my favorite Thanksgiving Day traditions - an after-feasting nap.

Cousin Cash is 14 months old and walking all over the place (ie: into everything!). He wasn’t too interested in Claire, but he did want to grab the bow off her head and bounce her right out of the bouncy seat! They both absolutely loved this silly stuffed turkey that played the chicken dance song. I think I’d be perfectly alright without ever hearing that song again…

We skipped our usual tradition of shopping on Black Friday for two reasons - the most important being I had to work from home this year. Also, we weren’t impressed with the circulars and the advertised sales. I had thought with the current state of the economy, the deals would have been better. We were going to hit the outlet malls in Myrtle Beach on Saturday, but the rainy weather ruined that plan. Nan and I took Claire and Cash to a few shops in Wilmington, but getting two babies in and out of the car in the rain was just more than we wanted to mess with. We stayed at the mall for a bit, and managed to get a couple of Christmas presents marked off our lists.

Saturday evening we were back at the beach, enjoying some fabulous turkey tettrazini. Cash was all over the place, trying his hardest not to fall asleep, and Claire was smiling up a storm. Getting the two of them together in a good picture is hard to say the least - below was the best one from our attempt and a shot of Cash and Grandma playing.

All in all, it was a great Holiday and we’ll head back to Raleigh today tired and stuffed. There are a lot more pictures - check out the Thanksgiving (Week 23) photo gallery.